Lamentations 2:1–10

2:1   How the Lord in his anger
    has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
  He has cast down from heaven to earth
    the splendor of Israel;
  he has not remembered his footstool
    in the day of his anger.
2   The Lord has swallowed up without mercy
    all the habitations of Jacob;
  in his wrath he has broken down
    the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
  he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
    the kingdom and its rulers.
3   He has cut down in fierce anger
    all the might of Israel;
  he has withdrawn from them his right hand
    in the face of the enemy;
  he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
    consuming all around.
4   He has bent his bow like an enemy,
    with his right hand set like a foe;
  and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes;
    in the tent of the daughter of Zion,
  he has poured out his fury like fire.
5   The Lord has become like an enemy;
    he has swallowed up Israel;
  he has swallowed up all its palaces;
    he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
  and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
    mourning and lamentation.
6   He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
    laid in ruins his meeting place;
  the LORD has made Zion forget
    festival and Sabbath,
  and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7   The Lord has scorned his altar,
    disowned his sanctuary;
  he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
    the walls of her palaces;
  they raised a clamor in the house of the LORD
    as on the day of festival.
8   The LORD determined to lay in ruins
    the wall of the daughter of Zion;
  he stretched out the measuring line;
    he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
  he caused rampart and wall to lament;
    they languished together.
9   Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    he has ruined and broken her bars;
  her king and princes are among the nations;
    the law is no more,
  and her prophets find
    no vision from the LORD.
10   The elders of the daughter of Zion
    sit on the ground in silence;
  they have thrown dust on their heads
    and put on sackcloth;
  the young women of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.